Welcome Old Timer (yer 8 years older than me ) Glad you had a blast but I'm going to be the ***ering one of the group...don't take it personally, I do this to all the newbies.....
I don't care what the reason....NEVER REMOVE YOUR MASK IN PLAY!

there's an article (a long one) that will reinforce what I mean...I really think you should read it...all of it.

Picture holding a raw egg in your index finger and thumb and squeeze. That's your unprotected eye when struck with a paintball.

When you guys are out playing, you should create a "dead-box" and "safe areas". This means barrel bags on/plugs in (bags are better than plugs); muzzles pointed at ground; marker's powered off/safeties are on. NEVER look down your barrel to see what's blocking it, mask on or not.

I know that you are not a child and I don't mean to talk to you like one, but I've been playing 16 years and have seen the most freaky accidents happen.

And Murphy's Law always asserts itself when it can. Treat paintball markers with the same respect you treat a firearm with.

also get a chrono (if you don't have one). Even the red shooting chrony used for firearms will do. Here's the one I use...the "F1" model...they can be found on EBay for like $40ish (that's where I got mine)

Alright well I'm pretty new too it myself been in it about six months with the spyder sonix. Great gun stock I can go toe to toe with any tippman and win easily (By skill as well) but what I'm trying to say is it holds up just as well as I do... BUT I must upgrade and I thought I'd ask you all in here for a good site for barrells and triggers and such because we don't have any kind of stores for that stuff around here .. We have one but they're liars.

They will have links to sellers as well. Otherwise, Action Village seems to be a pretty popular one. I just purchased my VS2 from [url]http://www.xtremez.com/paintball[url] and they were great! Ended up with free shipping on my order (over $100) and they had freebies that they were giving with internet orders.

To the question at hand, I have a 14" Smart Parts Progressive barrel ($30) and have really liked it.